


Tripping Over Air

by Maiika



Series: Old West AU [6]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: F/M, Marzi is not my character, Yamcha deserves love too, but she is an OC, see notes for credit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-13 03:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15355536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiika/pseuds/Maiika
Summary: Sheriff Yamcha has settled into his new role after the whirlwind events following new bandits and tycoon men bombarding West City.  Now it's his duty to greet any incoming, unexpected presences.  This one has him nervous in ways completely different than the arrivals which shook West City not too long ago.





	Tripping Over Air

**Author's Note:**

> A request from tumblr, prompt line: "real smooth, tripping over air" 
> 
> If you are interested in Marzi or want to know more about her, check @cozymochi's tumblr blog where there's tons of Marzi art and comics, as well as lots of other fun oc's Cozy has. Cozy, thank you for letting me borrow her!

The screech of wheels turning disrupted the typical sounds of early morning on West City’s Main Street.  The silhouettes of carriages and stage coaches didn’t typically break the sun-kissed horizon, now that everything had gone quiet following the occupation of Lord Frieza and his men.  But something was coming this morning. 

A fly flew past Yamcha’s head, buzzing in his ear until he flinched, reached for his hat, and tore it from his shaggy hair to swat it at the offending creature.  The new wood of the porch creaked below his weight as he stood from his rocking chair, bothered by the incessant buzzing.  He’d missed the damn thing.  When the buzz grew louder, Yamcha swung again at the black dot approaching him.  This time, it torpedoed to the ground, hitting a wooden slat before Yamcha crushed it beneath his shiny boot, his spurs rattling at the moment of impact.

  
Across the street, Oolong let out a nasal groan, disrupted from his hangover by the sounds of morning activity.  Shutters were thrown open in a chorus of clatters.  Hotel guests and local residents were awakening, curious to get a peek at the town’s new visitor.  Yamcha placed his hat back on his head and straightened the star-shaped badge on his leather vest as he peered down the center of the mud-lined street.  He was anxious to get a look, too.  He reached for his shotgun propped against the jail wall.  Couldn’t be too careful these days.  In recent experience, unexpected company tended to be hostile more often than not.  Yamcha had no idea who sat in the oncoming stagecoach, but as the town’s sheriff, it was his duty to be the first to welcome it - or confront it.  
  
Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Yamcha made his way down the new steps of the reconstructed jail.  He held the sturdy railing, admiring the support of its construction.  Those Namekians knew how to build.  It was nice having their presence in town more often.  Hopefully, he’d eventually feel the same way about whoever occupied this stagecoach.  
  
Yamcha tipped his hat at Bulma and her father emerging from the Capsule Hotel’s front entrance, noticing Vegeta approaching from behind them to give Yamcha a hostile look.  The guy hadn’t gotten over his hatred for lawmen yet, even though he was retired from thieving, supposedly.  With narrowed eyes, Yamcha turned his gaze back to the stagecoach.  It was squeaking to a stop, its brown horse snorting right in front of him, pressing its wide nose and hot breath against Yamcha’s face.  Behind the horse, the driver tipped a friendly hat from his perch.  
  
“Howdy,” Yamcha said as he made his way around to the side of the stagecoach, admiring its rare construction and appearance.  
  
On the side of the coach, next to the closed door, was painted one of those dinosaurs he’d seen in periodicals.  It was rendered in a caricature-fashion, colored green to match the script scrawled so wide across the stagecoach that Yamcha couldn’t read it.  As Yamcha cocked his head at the curious lines, trying to make out the print, he saw in his peripheral view the stagecoach door swinging open.  He looked sideways as a pointed boot appeared from behind it, stepping out on the first of three steps rolling out toward the ground.    The frills of a hem jutted out above the boot, a classic shade of blue.  Yamcha hadn’t expected a woman.  Women travelers were certainly a rarity in these parts.  She couldn’t be alone, traveling with only her driver, especially considering the types of dangers Yamcha had seen which surrounded them in the Western wilderness.  
  
Yamcha made his way around to the steps to receive her, and in the process, saw her emerging, waving a black lace fan in front of her face shielded beneath the brim of a feathered hat.  As she stopped fanning herself to reach for the stagecoach doorframe, supporting herself in her descent, Yamcha was struck by the sunrise striking her pale, perspiration-glistened skin.  Her dark brown hair was cut in a fashionable bob, a strand of it matted delicately above her stunning dark eyes.  
  
Yamcha grunted.  He was supposed to do something.  He knew propriety required a gentleman to do  _something_  in this situation, but his thoughts escaped him.  He was frozen, stunned by the beauty he hadn’t expected.  When the lady wobbled, her heel catching the second step and nearly sending her flying to the ground, Yamcha remembered himself.  He rubbed his profusely sweating hand against his pants before offering it to the lady.  

Without looking directly at him, she reached for his hand as if in reflex.  Yamcha panicked.  She was going to  _hold his hand_.  A beautiful woman to whom he hadn’t even been introduced yet.  Yamcha felt heat rush to his face as he expelled all the air from his lungs and retracted his hand, just as the lady leaned into it.  He squealed silently as he watched her tumble forward, missing the third step.  He caught a glimpse of her wide eyes and grimace as she fell.  Yamcha was frozen, helpless to assist her as she crashed to the ground, face-first.  
  
Yamcha put his face in his hand, groaning to himself for being an idiot.  The poor woman - he couldn’t believe he’d let her fall like that.  He scrambled forward to where she was struggling to her knees, fighting with the wide, elegant dress which was now caked in dirt and horse piss and all the lovely features of a Western town’s dirt road.  Yamcha cocked his shotgun against the stagecoach and scrambled to pick up the hat which had landed at his feet in the fall.  He noticed with a sneer that Oolong stood beside the road, watching all of this in amusement.  
  
“Here!  Here,” Yamcha said as he offered his free hand toward the back of the woman’s head, forgetting his fear of her in his attempts to behave civilly, “let me help ya up.  I’m terribly sorry, Miss.  Are you all right?”  
  
She pulled on Yamcha’s hand and stood, freeing her hand of Yamcha’s grip to brush the dirt from her dress as she shook her head.  “Real smooth, Marzi, tripping over air,” she grumbled.  
  
She was rolling her eyes at herself when Yamcha glimpsed her face again.  He handed over her feathery hat, rolling the name Marzi over in his mind.  She took the hat and cocked it over her disarrayed hairstyle which had moments ago been modern and tidy.  When she turned her eyes on Yamcha, they stopped rolling.  A wash of pink spread across those pretty cheeks of hers, brightening to red as it touched the bridge of her dainty nose.  Yamcha clenched his teeth to fight the tension returning to him.  
  
Yamcha’s hand flew to the back of his hat as he laughed it off.  “So...your name’s Marzi, Miss?”  
  
“Y-y-you’re the,” she said, “h-handsome sheriff.”  
  
Yamcha blinked.  “I’m...the sheriff of this town, yes.  Sheriff Yamcha Puar.  Nice to meet you, Miss Marzi.”  
  
“Miss Marzi...” she repeated with a faraway gaze.  
  
Yamcha crossed his arms and fidgeted, his spurs making noise until he forced his feet to still.  He glanced over his shoulder and caught Oolong snickering.  He tsked at the nosy onlooker before recalling his duty here.  In spite of her being a beautiful and seemingly harmless woman, Yamcha had to know Marzi was no threat to West City.  
  
“What brings you to West City?”  
  
“Me?” Marzi asked, glancing around as if there was anyone else here to whom Yamcha could possibly be talking.  “Oh, I’m just passing through.”  
  
“Passing through?”   
  
Yamcha felt his shoulders slump as disappointment dawned on him.  The fact that this woman wasn’t staying around longer was a real shame.  West City hadn’t seen a new pretty face (aside from traveling prostitutes looking to board at Champ’s) since...actually, people coming to West City hadn’t  _had_  pretty faces.  All the pretty ladies were born and raised here and currently taken.  
  
“I hope I’m not intrudin’ much,” she said, clasping her hands together and averting her gaze from Yamcha’s.  “I won’t be a bother.  I follow all the laws in every town I visit.”  
  
“Where ya headed?” Yamcha asked before he realized what he was asking.  “I mean, you’re welcome to stay around here as long as you like.  The Capsule Hotel has plenty of vacancies and they serve a good meal.”  
  
“Oh, you’re so sweet,” Marzi said with a wave of her hand, her dainty fingers catching Yamcha’s eye.  “But you see, I’m an actress, traveling here from the East.  My play is awaiting me.  I’m almost there now.”  
  
“Marzi, Marzi,” a deep voice called from within the stagecoach, sounding regal.  “We must board ourselves quickly to prepare for our next journey to the great theater.  Let us find this hotel the good sheriff suggested.”  
  
“Oh!” Marzi started, as if she, too, was just realizing there was another passenger in the coach.  “That’s my director.  Don’t worry.  I’ll keep an eye on him an’ make sure he follows your rules around here as well.”  
  
As Marzi winked at him, exaggerating the length of her dark lashes, Yamcha gulped.  He tore his gaze from her to peer into the coach.  Shrouded in shadows, he saw the figure of a man sitting upright with excellent posture.  For all he knew, Marzi had a relationship with this director, or some other man waiting for her at the theater or back East.  She was an  _actress_.  Yamcha was impressed.  They didn’t get many of them coming through here.    
  
Yamcha hated to see a woman like her go.  He wanted to let Marzi know  _he_  wanted to see here around here longer, but his tongue was tied.  He sputtered and groaned unintelligible words, finding relief only in knowing he’d already told her she was welcome to stay, at least.  She covered her giggle with a flash of her lace fan, but in her eyes, she couldn’t hide the amusement with Yamcha’s fumbling.    
  
The stagecoach shifted as the director stepped out.  Before Marzi turned away from him, before Yamcha might not have another chance to speak to her again, Yamcha remembered himself and his manners.  He reached for her lace-covered fingers, intent on kissing her hand to properly make the actress’s acquaintance.  
  
Yamcha leaned forward to connect his lips with her hand, heat running through his face and burning his ears.  Marzi turned just before Yamcha hooked her fingers in his.  She hadn’t seen his move.  Her hand flew wide to accompany her spin.  Marzi’s knuckles rapped against Yamcha's face, eliciting a surprised squeal from Marzi.  As Yamcha titled his head back, his lip throbbing, Oolong let out a guffaw at his side, while the theatre director had the dignity to restrain his laughter, though he couldn’t hide it fully.  
  
Before Yamcha could curse at Oolong, Marzi turned to him, wide-eyed and red-faced.  She curtsied. “It was n-nice to make your acquaintance, Sheriff Yamcha.”  
  
“Y-yeah,” Yamcha slurred, grimacing at his in-eloquence when she turned away again.  
  
When Marzi hurried to the Capsule Hotel, as fast as a maid in corset and heels could possibly move, her theatre director stepped pointed boots to the ground.  With a refined landing, he gave a swift bow, and turned to follow Marzi without another word.  
  
Yamcha stared after her for a long while, watching her blue skirts swish as her bell-shaped hips shook below her sharp corset.  There went another chance at marriage, it seemed.  Not that Yamcha could’ve had much chance from that brief encounter, but he had a feeling about Marzi.  He really liked her.  
  
A series of clacks indicating saloon doors swinging drew Yamcha’s eye past Oolong. The rocking chair on the porch of Chiaotzu’s, Tien’s newly-renamed saloon, was vacant for the time-being.  Old man Roshi was stepping out the swinging doors, a broom in his hands, a cloud of dust preceding him.  Yamcha looked back down the road at Marzi walking with her theater director.  As her form disappeared behind the haze of heat waving invisibly across Main Street, a long, low whistle rang from the saloon porch.  Yamcha let loose a wistful sigh.  Mr. Roshi’s reaction to Marzi didn’t surprise him in the least.  Instead of being focused on the other two fiends staring after Marzi with deviant intent, Yamcha daydreamed of a bright future as he watched her.

“She’s a looker, ain’t she?” Oolong called out, directing his question at Mr. Roshi’s whistle.  
  
“Who is she, Yamcha?” Mr. Roshi asked anxiously.  “Is she comin’ in to the saloon?”  
  
“I doubt it,” Yamcha said with another sigh.  “She’s an actress.  Her name is Marzi.  But...she’s just passing through.”  
  
Oolong tsked.  “Hopefully the rest of her ‘passing through’ will be a little less perilous.  I don’t know which one of you two is smoother, you or her, Sheriff.”  
  
As Oolong snickered, Mr. Roshi crowed in delight.  “Yamcha, you hit it off with that lady?  What are you doin’ lettin’ her get away?”  
  
“I can’t, Mr. Roshi,” Yamcha said, flustered at the thought of pursuing her.  “I told you, she’s leaving in the morning.  She needs to wash up from her travels and then she’ll want to rest.  She doesn’t need the sheriff knocking at her door.”  
  
Oolong huffed before smirking at Yamcha.  “But I bet she wouldn’t mind a quickie in the middle of the night before she leaves.”  
  
“Oolong!” Yamcha scolded.  
  
Mr. Roshi flashed a row of missing and crooked teeth at them and cackled.  As Oolong joined in,  Yamcha rolled his eyes with a sigh.  Those guys didn’t get it.  They were content with being bachelors.  Yamcha had thought at one time he’d marry Bulma, but now he was worried the right woman might never come along.  He couldn’t expect Marzi to miss her play any more than he would willingly turn in his badge as sheriff here.  He admired her having a talent and passion she was willing to travel across the country to pursue.  Maybe if she kept up the acting, one day, she’d be back.  The theater could find West City some day.  Yamcha was willing to bet several of the residents here would appreciate the entertainment.  
  
One day, a woman like Marzi would come along for Yamcha.  He just had to be patient.


End file.
